And we are back racing!
What a lovely stopover Seattle was. We were lucky enough to have no major fixes to the boat, except from our Code 1 so Mike, Mark and the amazing sail repair team managed to work their magic and get it fixed straight away, meaning everyone got some well-earned down time which was needed after the Pacific crossing. A few big thank yous go out to Shaun and Sarah from PSP Logistics for coming to visit the team and take us out for drinks, to Kellie for organising a pizza party: we all had a lovely evening. And to Kellie, heather and some of their friends who helped work with Lisa and her victualling team to make sure we had enough food on board for this very long leg, it's definitely appreciated.
In this stopover the team really has changed. We said goodbye to Vera, Colin, Hoff, Jon, Brent, Gus and Stefan- it was a pleasure to sail with you all. However, we have welcomed back Tina and Justin and our eight new joiners, Chris, Maya, Sandra, Steph, Tracy, Keith, Trevor and Ronaldo who have all been pushing the boat nicely so far!
To the sailing, we were the most windward boat in the Le Mans start which wasn't the most favourable position. However, we pushed from the start and then decided before it got dark we needed a bigger headsail so changed to the Yankee 1 (on Race Start we all have the same sail plan which is chosen by the lead boat). Since the change we carried on sailing nicely through the night and then got hit by a squall this morning with one reef in, so we decided to pop in a second and bore away slightly to not stretch the sails. After a few big gusts the wind finally calmed down, so we kept going nicely in the right direction. This afternoon the wind has been quite changeable, so the team changed back to the Yankee 2 and have shaken out and put back in reefs and kept working hard to keep us in the middle of the fleet so far!
Wildlife bingo so far consists of a group of orcas in Puget Sound as we motored to the start line, some porpoises jumping around as we were doing some refresher training, some seals playfully jumping out the water with one just swimming lazily behind with its fin flopping around, and a petrol bird gliding around us.
Lottie, Mike and the active crew of PSP Logistics